Exercise for Cancer Survivors: Level 2

Share

Print

Physical Activity and Exercise

Physical activity is any movement of the body that uses energy. Some of your daily life activities such as doing active chores around the house, yard work, or walking the dog are examples of physical activity.

Exercise is a type of physical activity in which you do body movements that are planned, structured, and repeated to improve or maintain your physical fitness level. To get the health benefits of exercise, you should try to include the following activities:

Activities that make you breathe harder, such as brisk walking, running, dancing, swimming, and playing basketball.

Strengthening exercises, such as push-ups and lifting weights. These exercises can make your muscles stronger.

Recommended Amount of Exercise for Cancer Survivors

Experts recommend the following:

Try to get at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise each week. The table in the section “Exercise Intensity levels” gives examples of moderate and vigorous intensity exercise.

You can do this by exercising for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week at a moderate intensity or for 15 minutes, 5 days a week at a vigorous intensity.

In general, 15 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise provides the same benefits as 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise.

You can combine the moderate- and vigorous-intensity exercise. For example, you could do 3 days of moderate-intensity exercise for 30 minutes each day and 2 days of vigorous-intensity exercise for 15 minutes each day.

Two to 3 sessions per week of strength training that includes your major muscle groups. Your major muscle groups are your chest, shoulders, arms, back, abdomen (belly), and legs. Strength training activities include push-ups, sit-ups, using resistance bands, and lifting weights.

Stretching your major muscle groups 2 to 3 times a week.

As part of a healthy lifestyle, you should do general physical activity daily. You should also avoid long periods of not moving, such as sitting for hours at a time.

If you’re already meeting the weekly exercise goals, you can gain even more health benefits by slowly adding more time to your weekly routine. Make a goal of doubling your weekly exercise time to 5 hours.

Instead of doing only moderate-intensity exercises, replace some of it with vigorous-intensity exercises, which will make your heart beat even faster. Adding vigorous-intensity exercise provides benefits in less activity time. If you want stronger muscles, you can also try increasing your strength training from 2 to 3 days a week.

Strengthening exercise

Tell us what you think

Tell us what you think

Your feedback will help us improve the information we provide to patients and caregivers.

Survey Questions

Questions

Yes

Somewhat

No

Was this information easy to understand?

Yes

Somewhat

No

What could we have explained better?

Last Updated

Sunday, September 5, 2021

If you have any questions, contact a member of your healthcare team directly. If you're a patient at MSK and you need to reach a provider after 5:00 pm, during the weekend, or on a holiday, call 212-639-2000.

If you have any questions, contact a member of your healthcare team directly. If you're a patient at MSK and you need to reach a provider after 5:00 pm, during the weekend, or on a holiday, call 212-639-2000.